TCM - Big BangA Beginner's-and Expert's-Guide to the Big Bang: Sifting Facts from Fictions
7/1/2000 Big bang cosmology is an explosive topic. Heated reactions—and bitter resistance—have arisen from opposite directions in the last century but, ironically, for the same type of reasons: religious reasons. One group of big bang opponents includes those who understand the theory’s implications, and the other, those who misunderstand them. An Infinity of Universes?
Excerpted from The Creator and the Cosmos, 3d ed. (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2001), 171-72.By Hugh Ross, Ph.D. The weight of evidence for a divinely designed universe is now so overwhelming that it has forced astronomers and philosophers who reject the God of the Bible as the Author of the cosmos to propose the existence of an infinite number of universes. These scholars readily concede that dozens of different characteristics of the universe must be exquisitely fine-tuned for any kind of conceivable physical life to be possible. Better Clocks, Constants Still Constant
by Jeff Zweerink One biblical message Reasons To Believe consistently echoes is the mandate to weed out false ideas by testing everything. Jeremiah 33:25 makes a testable statement about the laws which govern heaven and earth, namely that they do not change. Big Bang - The Bible Taught It First!
7/1/2000 Most science textbooks that address cosmology credit Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson with the discovery that the universe arose from a hot big bang creation event. While it is true that they were the first (1965) to detect the radiation left over from the creation event Big Bang Buttressed
1/1/2000 Belief that the universe was created a finite time ago by a transcendent Creator has been strengthened by evidence yet again. A new piece of astronomical research brings good news for Christians and bad news for anyone denying God’s existence or equating God with the universe itself. Big Bang Passes Big Test
4/1/2003 Atheist astrophysicist Geoffrey Burbidge once worried aloud that his peers might rush off to join "the First Church of Christ of the Big Bang."1 The rush of which he spoke was precipitated by a deluge of observational support for the big bang. Astronomers had just verified specific predictions coming from the big bang model. Today, that verification continues. The latest comes from the discovery of something called "polarized radiation" in the early universe. Big Bang Stands Firm
10/1/2002 During my school days in Vancouver, B.C., I met some really brilliant students, but none of them aced every test. I can say, though, that I have met a theory that does. The big bang has scored well on every test devised and applied by researchers over several decades, and it has just sailed through another one with flying colors. Black Holes Constrain Fundamental Constant Variation
Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D. Jeremiah 33:25 describes a cosmos governed by an unchanging set of physical laws. In fact, this constancy provides the basis for the Israelites’ confidence in God’s trustworthiness. While repeated testing bears witness to the constancy of the laws governing the universe, scientists continue to test—and actually hope to find some variation. Continuous Cosmic Expansion
10/1/2005 Big bang opponents are a diverse lot. Some promote an infinitely (or near infinitely) old universe to avoid a creation event in the relatively recent (roughly 14-billion-year) past. So, they argue that the universe is static or semi-static-no general cosmic expansion. Others promote a very young creation (6,000-10,000 years old) to fit a particular interpretation of Genesis 1. They need the expansion to occur much more rapidly than a few billion years. Nestled in between is the established scientific-and biblical-model saying that expansion has occurred continuously over the past 13.7 billion years. Cosmic Cool Down - What Does It Mean?
4/1/2001 Not one but five writers of Scripture describe God’s “stretching out” of the heavens. From a scientist’s perspective, these ancient writers predict the twentieth-century discovery of continual cosmic expansion.1 The book of Romans tells readers that the entire creation is subject to the law of decay. Again, a scientist would see this statement as an obvious reference to the second law of thermodynamics.2 Design Feature Prevents Hard Snowball Earth
3/12/2008 Imagine the Antarctic glaciers extending over the whole Earth. Dating back to the early 1960s, scientists proposed just such a scenario, known as a “snowball Earth” hypotheses to explain various geological and geochemical data in the planet’s history. Does Dark Energy Need a Shave?
by Jeff Zweerink Do graphite whiskers in meteorites require shaving dark energy out of cosmological models? Consider a familiar scenario. Your child lies on the couch acting unusually calm. You touch your their forehead and it feels warm. The insta-thermometer gives a reading of 101.2oF from the child’s ear. The traditional thermometer in the mouth gives a reading of 101.4oF. Without question, your child has a fever. Double Pulsar Tests General Relativity
8/20/2008 My graduate research focused on detecting extremely energetic gamma rays from astronomical objects. Using an arbitrary set of units, if the light from a standard incandescent bulb has the energy of one, then the X-rays in a doctor’s office have energy around 10,000. Einstein Exonerated in Breakthrough Discovery
7/1/1999 An international team of 31 astronomers, cooperating in what is called The Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP), has just produced the first positive identification of Einstein’s infamous cosmological constant. This discovery yields what may be the most profound evidence to date for divine design of the cosmos.1 Facing Up to Big Bang Challenges
1/1/2001 What danger lurks in associating big bang cosmology with biblical cosmology? Most Christian physicists, astronomers, and other scientists would say, “None.” Many Christian philosophers, theologians, pastors, and other nonscientists would say, “A big one.” General Relativity Wins an Old Debate
12/3/2008 Isaac Newton’s most highly regarded scientific publication is his three-volume work General Relavity Passes Another Test
6/18/2008 Part of my attraction to gamma-ray astronomy relates to the types of objects it observes. My graduate research focused on an object called Markarian 421. It is an active galactic nucleus (AGN) located about 360 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Hints of Newborn Universe Detected
Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in 1965 and the subsequent detection of minute ripples in the CMB in 1994 both garnered Nobel Prizes. The former confirmed the big bang models of the universe while ruling out the steady state models. The latter demonstrated how an initially smooth universe developed structures like clusters and superclusters of galaxies. Precise and Accurate
Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D. Recent measurements using the Hubble Space Telescope help to resolve a scientific dispute that impacts how old the universe appears. Most readers will recall that the initial WMAP results gave an age for the universe of 13.7 ±0.2 billion years. After more data accumulation, the quoted date changed to 13.73 ±0.15 billion years. Predictive Power: Confirming Cosmic Creation
4/1/2002 Scientists focus enormous effort on turning detections (observations and measurements) into predictions. Meteorologists use data to predict temperatures, wind, and precipitation. Astronomers use data to predict meteor showers and eclipses. Signpost of Unification Found?
3/5/2008 Scientists seek to discover a discover fundamental theory underlying all natural phenomena, including the four basic forces of in nature: the electromagnetic force, the gravitational force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. In the past several hundred years, unification played a central role in many of the great scientific advancements. Summary of Reasons To Believe's Testable Creation Model
By Hugh Ross, Ph.D. Posted 02-07-2000 One reason we evangelicals have had so little impact on secular society with our creation teachings is that we try to teach Genesis without presenting a testable creation model. We either focus all of our guns on what is wrong with naturalism or we duck the issue by claiming that Genesis presents no specific creation model. Thus, we are perceived by society as either negative or cowardly. Testing General Relativity's Fundamental Assumptions
Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D. Imagine an architect sitting down to design a building and starting the process by verifying that all objects fall to the ground. Then the architect engages in numerous detailed tests to confirm gravity’s action. Why bother? It sounds ludicrous to test such an obvious and essential assumption. Tolman's Elegant Test
1/1/2002 The cosmic characteristic most extensively described in the Bible is the ongoing expansion of the universe. No other holy book of the world's religions describes this feature, nor was it anticipated by secular scholars before the development of Einstein's theory of general relativity. TCM - Big BangTCM - Big Bang |
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